Hospital beds, and other places where you could once happily spark up a fag

SMOKING will soon be banned outside hospitals when within living memory it was every Englishman’s right to have an NHS ashtray. And it was fine in all these locations: 

Planes

Not 30 years ago, a pressurised airplane cabin maintaining an oxygen-rich atmosphere while tens of thousands of feet in the air agreed it was vital for anyone who wanted to smoke heavily to do so. Not a smoker? Don’t worry, you’re getting all the benefits for no extra charge.

Hospitals

What could be more vicious and inhuman to deny a man having both legs amputated for deep vein thrombosis the right to a cheeky gasper? Why, if he can’t service his nicotine addiction while under your care, he’ll barely have the energy to sexually objectify the nurses. That’s a world none of us want to see.

Theatres and cinemas

Packing hundreds of people into an unlit venue where flammable rubbish accumulates and exits are few? Then put ashtrays on the backs of the seats, love, because they’ll be lighting up. Adds savour to Jurassic Park if you can chain-smoke through it. If you want non-smoking, the usherette will put you on the other side. There is no barrier.

In the car with the family

Still legal, but how often do you see it these days? Mum and Dad, puffing away, kids playing happily in the back? Enjoying the game of dodging a lit fag-end when it blows back in through Mum’s window in a shower of sparks toward the polyester-upholstered back seat? Happier times.

Staffrooms

Children summoned to see teachers at lunchtime – to hand in lines, to collect a confiscated toy, or simply to be physically chastised – would open the door to a wall of blue smoke, figures only dimly visible in the haze. Every teacher in there would be making the most of their break by smoking unremittingly. And they were never off with stress.

Prison

Tobacco wasn’t just the leisure pursuit of choice for those detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, it was currency. Privileges, punishment beatings or sexual favours all had their price in snouts. Now it’s been banned on health and safety grounds and prisoners have to measure out the time until early release in doses of Spice instead.

Inside the mind of a British Trump supporter

THEY are here among us, frustrated they cannot cast their vote to make America great again because they are citizens of a different country. Look inside their minds: 

“Trump’s a real man”

Americans often think this, despite the evidence, because they spent the 80s bombarded with Trump and his sexual exploits and the 00s watching him as the final boss on The Apprentice. Men from Hertfordshire do not have that excuse, only seeing big burly bearded duck hunters from Louisiana call Trump a hero and copying them slavishly.

“He’ll make America great again”

Trump already tried that, and the years 2016 from 2020 were not palpably great. Not that a mortgage broker from Lincoln was able to dispassionately assess that, given the distance involved. Is he imagining the USA’s greatness will rub off on Britain? Does he hope Nigel Farage will bring back suitcases of greatness and hand it around?

“He’s not a tool of the World Economic Forum”

Ah. Now we’re getting a glimpse into the shadowy recesses of our subject’s cerebellum. Bored of his life as a divorcee in Goole, he’s enlivening it by imagining himself a freedom fighter against a ludicrous conspiracy. While ignoring that if anyone is owned by the World Economic Forum it would be Trump, a man who owes banks multiple millions.

“The 2020 election was stolen” 

On one side there is a real paucity of evidence for this claim. On the other, there’s extensive evidence Trump tried to steal it. So why does our unemployed Swindon heating engineer believe this so fervently? Has he, perhaps, lost something and felt it unfairly stolen? Was it his job, taken from him because he nicked and sold copper piping?

“He won’t take America’s guns away” 

Nobody will. The right to own an automatic weapon is inviolable over there. That a Dorking man finds it important that Americans be armed is revealing. It reveals that he would like to be armed. That he would find a small arsenal in his garage comforting. That he has violent fantasies about those who ignore the ‘No Turning’ sign in his drive.

“He triggers the libs” 

And now we reach the heart of it. Because while there are no fervent Harris supporters on these shores, there are many who abhor Trump. And by flying a Trump-Vance flag on his farm on the A34, prominently displayed to passing traffic, our retiree would like every passing Labour voter to finally notice him. Give him a cheery honk of the horn, why not?